Creating Flow Frames for Posters or Magazines
Nicola L. C. Talbot
The page layout for this document was obtained with the following commands: \NcolumnStop{4}{1in}
\setflowframe{3,4}{pages={>1}}
\twocolumnSbottominarea[1]{1in}{0.5\textwidth}{flowframeheight{3}} {0.5\textwidth}{0pt}
1 This is a modified version of the
manual for the flowfram package. It is intended to illustrated what can be done. See the full manual for a comprehensive description. If the columns are very narrow, it may be better to use \raggedright, otherwise TEX may have a problem working out the line breaks.
1
Introduction
The flowfram package is designed to enable you to create frames in a document such that the contents of the document environment flow from one frame to the next in the order that they were defined. This is useful for creating posters or magazines or any other form of document that does not conform to the standard one or two column layout.
2
Setting up Frames
The flowfram package provides three types of frame: flow frames, static frames and dynamic frames.
2.1
Flow Frames
The flow frame is the principle type of frame. The text of the document environment will flow from one frame to the next in order of definition. Each flow frame has an associated width, height, position on the page, and optionally a border.
It is recommended that all the flow frames in a document have the same width, otherwise problems may occur when a paragraph spans to flow frames of unequal widths. This is because TEX’s output routine does not register the change in \hsize until it reaches a paragraph break. If it is absolutely necessary for flow frames to have unequal widths, judicious use of \framebreak is required.
2.2
Static Frames
A static frame is a rectangular area in which text neither flows into, nor flows out of. The contents must be set explicitly, and once set, the contents of the static frame will remain the same on each page until it is explicitly
changed. Thus, a static frame can be used, for example, to make a company logo appear in the same place on every page.
2.3
Dynamic Frames
A dynamic frame is similar to a static frame, but its contents are re-typeset on each page. (A static frame stores its contents in a savebox, whereas a dynamic frame stores its contents in a macro).
3
Frame Attributes
Once you have defined the flow frames, static frames and dynamic frames, their attributes can be changed. The three types of frame mostly have the same set of attributes, but some are specific to a certain type.
The available attributes are as follows (F indicates the key is only available
for flow frames,Sindicates the key is
only available for static frames andD
indicates the key is only available for dynamic frames):
width=<length> The width of the frame.
height=<length> The height of the frame.
x=<length> The x-coordinate of the frame.
y=<length> The y-coordinate of the frame.
border=<style> The style of the border around the frame, this can take the values: none (no border), plain (plain border) or the name of a LATEX frame
making command without the
Creating Flow Frames for Posters or Magazines
Nicola L. C. Talbot
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Creating Flow Frames for Posters or Magazines
Nicola L. C. Talbot
2 preceding backslash. The value
fbox is equivalent to plain.
offset=<offset > The border offset, if it is a user-defined border. This is the distance from the outer edge of the left hand border to the left edge of the bounding box of the text inside the border. The flowfram package is able to compute the border for known frame making commands. If you define your own frame making command, you may need to specify the offset explicitly, or the frames may end up shifted to the right or left.
bordercolor=<colour > The colour of the border if you are using a standard frame making
command. The colour can either be specified as, e.g. green, or including the colour model, e.g. [rgb]{0,1,0}.
textcolor=<colour > The text colour for that frame. Again, the colour can either be specified as, e.g. green, or including the colour model, e.g. [rgb]{0,1,0}.
pages=<page list > The list of pages for which the frame should appear. This can either have the values: all, even, odd or none (the latter removes the frame from that point on—useful if you have multiple pages with the same number), or it can be a comma-separated list of single pages, or page ranges.
margin=<side>F The side of the flow frame that its corresponding margin should go on. This can take the values left or right. clear=<boolean>S If this value is set,
the static frame will be cleared at the start of the next page. style=<cmd >D This should be the
name of a command without the preceding backslash, to be applied to the contents of the specified dynamic frame. The command may either be a declaration, for example style=large which will set the contents of all the dynamic frames in a large font, or it can be a command that takes a
single argument, for example style=textbf which will make the text for all the dynamic frames come out in bold. To unset a style, do style=none.
4
Miscellaneous
4.1
Page Layout
The flowfram package has the package option draft which will draw the bounding boxes for each frame defined. At the bottom right of each bounding box (except for the bounding box denoting the
typeblock), a marker will be shown to indictate the type of frame, its IDN and its IDL.
You can see the layout for the current page (irrespective of whether or not the draft option has been set) using the command:
\flowframeshowlayout
The headers and footers will appear as usual (but will not be shown in draft mode), according to the format given by \pagestyle.
4.2
Frame Stacking Order
The material on each page is placed in the following order:
1. Each static frame defined for that page in ascending order of IDN.
2. Each flow frame defined for that page in ascending order of IDN. 3. Each dynamic frame defined for that page in ascending order of IDN.
4. Bounding boxes if the draft package option has been used. This ordering can be used to determine if you want something to overlay or underlay everything else on the page.
4.3
Prematurely Ending a
Flow Frame
You can force text to move
immediately to the next defined flow frame using one of the standard LATEX
page breaking commands which work
Creating Flow Frames for Posters or Magazines
Nicola L. C. Talbot
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Creating Flow Frames for Posters or Magazines
Nicola L. C. Talbot
3 in an analogous way to the way they
work in standard two column mode. The command \framebreak is provided for situations where a paragraph spans two flow frames of different widths, as TEX’s output routine does not adjust to the new value of \hsize until the last paragraph of the previous frame has ended. As a result, the end of the paragraph at the beginning of the new flow frame retains the width of the previous flow frame.
If you want to start a new page, rather than simply move to the next frame, use the command
\finishthispage.
4.4
Floats
Since floats (such as figures and tables) can only go in flow frames, this package provides the additional environments: staticfigure and
statictable which can be used in static frames and dynamic frames. Unlike their figure and table counterparts, they are fixed in place, and so do not take an optional placement specifier. The \caption and \label commands
can be used within staticfigure and statictable as usual.
The standard figure and table
commands will behave as usual in the flow frames, but their starred
versions, figure* and table* behave no differently from figure and table.
4.5
Global Values
The following macros can be changed using \renewcommand:
• \setffdraftcolor This sets the colour of the bounding box when it is displayed in draft mode. • \setffdrafttypeblockcolor
This sets the colour of the bounding box of the typeblock when it is displayed in draft mode.
• \fflabelfont
This sets the font size for the bounding box markers in draft mode.
The following are lengths, which can be changed using \setlength:
• \fflabelsep
This is the distance from the right hand side of the bounding box at which to place the bounding box marker. • \flowframesep
This is the gap between the text of the frame and its border, for the standard border types. • \flowframerule
This is the width of the frame’s border, if using a border given by a frame making command that uses \fboxsep to set its border width.
Creating Flow Frames for Posters or Magazines
Nicola L. C. Talbot
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